Less is more: The rise of the street food scene

Metro meets the pioneers of street food and looks into why customers are happy to be given less choice when it comes to what to eat.

James Elliot and Louis Lillywhite of Pizza Pilgrims in Soho believe the street food scene is leading the way in British eating (Picture: Matt Writtle)

Can you have too much choice? From Mark Hix’s latest opening, Tramshed, which offers just two dishes – chicken or steak – to hummus diners and pared down pizzerias, many eateries are prove the old adage that less really is more.

The street food scene is leading the way. Petra Barran, who promotes British street food through Eat St ( www.eat.st ), says: ‘Look in Thailand and India – those traders keep it simple. They don’t deviate. People visit them for a specialism.’

The Rib Man, aka Mark Gevaux ( www.theribman.co.uk ), sells pork ribs on Sundays from his stall in Brick Lane, east London. The pork comes from outdoor-reared pigs from Norfolk and Suffolk, so it has an impeccable pedigree.

Of his one-meal menu, Gevaux says: ‘I cook my ribs over three processes. They take around eight hours to fall off the bone. The reason they taste so good is they cook in their own juices so you get all the flavour from inside the bones. And I only use babyback ribs because I love the flavour.’

James Elliot of Pizza Pilgrim gets to work (Picture: Matt Writtle)

It isn’t just in London that the single dish movement is thriving. On Commercial Street in Leeds, Andrew Critchett focuses on uncompromisingly good batter for his fish and serves just three versions of it from his mobile beach hut, Fish&. Meanwhile, in Bristol, food lovers seek out SisterGee’s jerk chicken shack outside the nightclub Lakota @martiburgess on Twitter.

The shack is found in Lakota’s car park in Stoke Croft’s Upper York Street on weekend evenings over the summer. There’s just one choice – jerk chicken by the nightclub’s owner, Marti Burgess. Why is it special? Burgess says: ‘The pimento, or allspice [known as Jamaican pepper] is grown on my dad’s land. We pick it ourselves.’

It’s as authentic as it gets. ‘My family originate from Portland in Jamaica. My grandmother was a descendent of the escaped slaves. I use her family recipe,’ she says

What is real jerk? ‘It’s a method, that’s what people get wrong. It’s the use of wood, rather than coal and it shouldn’t smoke too much – runaway slaves didn’t want smoke.’ It’s £6, including coco bread and plantain salad. ‘Rice and peas are a travesty,’ she adds.

Mark Gevaux, known as The Rib Man, only offers one dish made from the best ingredients (Picture: Chris Mcintosh)

Burgess’s commitment to authenticity is shared by other traders. ‘To me, it’s about doing one thing really well,’ says James Elliot, who travelled with his brother across Italy in pursuit of the perfect pizza. His Pizza Pilgrims ( @pizzapilgrims ) sells Napoli pizza from a green three-wheeled Piaggio Ape van, which is fitted with a 650kg oven, in Berwick Street, in Soho.

Explaining the need to focus on a specialism, he says: ‘In Britain, the classic margherita is the vanilla ice cream of many but, in Naples, it’s all you have. People visit a restaurant for that one.’

With fewer ingredients, there’s nothing to hide behind. Elliot uses mozzarella, basil, tomatoes, flour and water. For mozzarella, he favours fior di latte, made using cow’s milk. ‘If you used buffalo, which is more watery, it would make the pizza a bit soupy.’

Sister Gee in Bristol serves up what she calls ‘real jerk’ made using her grandmother’s recipe (Picture: File)

He uses San Marzano tomatoes, ‘grown on volcanic soil, they’re sweet and perfect,’ he says. The dough is made from 00 (double zero) flour and proved with love.

‘Neopolitan dough is flour, water, salt and as little yeast as possible; we prove ours up to 24hours,’ he says. A supermarket might prove dough for an hour, not giving the gluten a chance to develop and so it will be lacking elasticity.

The Rib Man says short menus are on the rise because there’s no compromise. It’s pushing the quest for perfection to extreme. ‘As soon as quantity becomes more important than quality, you struggle.’